Jinsei Shinzaki

TLD says, "I'd love to hear his thoughts on the underrated during the '94 to '95 timeframe recognition.

For example, Hakushi, a talent that deserved more." Lots of people loved, uh, Shinsei Shinzaki, the, the, the Hakushi character.

Just wasn't long for this world.

But is there anybody else that you can think of that you would consider criminally underrated from that era?

I am impressed that you knew, um...

Oh, Hakushi was fantastic.

Um, you know, and that's one of the things that timing obviously is everything, and when you look at the in-ring work of the New Generation era, and yes, there was silly characters, not Bastion Booger and Theo Hopper and The Goon and, I mean, you could kind of go through that, but you also had Shawn and Bret, and, I mean, there, there was, there was a g- there was kind of a core group, uh, criminally underrated.

Um, and again, the style, the, the, it was how WWF wanted you to work.

The other top match saw the current Tiger Mask team with mentor Sayama to beat Michinoku, Taka Michinoku, and Shoichi Funaki, who Dave describes as the top indie tag team in Japan.

And then he also writes that Shiro Koshinaka, walking with a cane, attended the show to scout Jinsei Shinzaki for their upcoming dome match.

For those that are maybe wondering what Shinzaki did on this show, it was a six-minute match against Lenny Lane, so I'm glad that Koshinaka could be there to scout that footage.

We also get the interesting note, this is from the Observer the week prior.

I was just, just for a point of information doing like that, because it's just like, so he's further on this island and he's not-- that there's like no impact to his stuff.

Like I go back to the Makalan match where everything felt so impactful, everything felt so devastating, everything felt like such a real, like scene and a struggle, and I just like...

It wasn't him eating up Taka, but it was not the two piranhas in a tank going at each other that I've been led to believe, uh, Jinsei Shinzaki matches were in Michinoku Pro.

So we get Taka versus Shinzaki on the 19th, and again, I gave that match three and a half stars.

I'm like, "Fuck this.

I hope Hakushi kills one of them." Like-

[laughs]

... fuck these guys.

I smoke weed."

[laughs] And Meltzer says that there's been rumors that Hakushi could be part of the group as well, but doesn't believe that that's true since Hakushi's still technically under contract with the WWF through November, even though he's pretty much been released to work anywhere else.

So far the only name Dave knows for sure is, that's gonna be part of the group is one Chris Champion wrestled-

Mm-hmm

Hang on.

A running power slam off the top rope as in he ran across the ropes like Hakushi style? No, he didn't

run across.

Yeah, it's true.

For consistency sake, I don't know.

Anyways, so Hakushi lost the Buried Alive match, and then I think in Japan, later on, he had a rematch with Dante, which he came out of a coffin as a zombie.

I'm like, oh, you know, there's continuity there for them anyways.

Yeah.